As the World Falls Down in Pieces
by River9Noble
Summary: For AngelGlass. May all your Jareths come true in 2020, Precious. He's out there. Some angsty but romantic Sarah/Jareth goodness for New Year's Eve. Happy New Year.


_**As the World Falls Down in Pieces**_

_For the sweet FFN author AngelGlass. May all your Jareths come true in 2020, Precious. He's out there. _

December 31, 1999

Sarah sat on her living room couch, wearing pajama pants and an old tank top, with a half-empty can of beer in her hand and a mostly eaten pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream beside her.

"Three years," she muttered to herself, watching the frenzied stupidity of Times Square on her tv at five minutes to midnight. Her sigh couldn't stop the tears that kept forming. A small pile of charred momentos sat in her largest kitchen pot - some photos, a few greeting cards, a nice piece of lingerie.

The smoke detector lay upended on the coffee table, its batteries ripped out. "I'll have to replace those before I go to bed," Sarah thought dispiritedly. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and drew her knees up to her chest, shuddering and wondering how her world had fallen down.

"You said you'd be here for me," she said out loud, her voice breaking. Dimly in the background, she heard the one-minute-to-midnight countdown begin. Suddenly, Sarah frowned hard.

"No!" she said louder, anger lacing through her voice. "_You _said you'd be here for me. When the world fell down. Well, where are you now, Jareth?" she demanded, flinging her arm wildly to the side, causing lukewarm beer to slosh out of the bottle.

"My world's falling down! And I don't see the Goblin King!" she yelled to the emptiness of her living room and the increasingly vapid excitement of the countdown host. The revelers in Times Square began chanting the ten second countdown.

"Happy New Year," Sarah snarled bitterly to herself. "You know what I wish for New Year's?" she asked no one as the seconds ticked down to midnight.

"_I wish the Goblin King would come and take me away!" _

The words left her mouth right as the ball dropped.

The lights snapped and cracked throughout the room and the tv fizzled off. Sarah's breath caught in her throat as she sat in the pitch dark.

But it wasn't pitch dark anymore, because a soft light was coming from her left elbow. She turned her head to see _him_ there, leaning up against her bedroom doorjamb, casually tossing a glowing orb up and down with one hand as he lazily regarded her with a raised eyebrow.

"You called, Precious?" he asked her. Sarah's jaw fell open.

In a rage, she threw her beer bottle at him with all her might. He caught it deftly with his free hand right before it hit his face.

"You always did have a temper, Precious," Jareth said, flicking the bottle over his shoulder. "I give you _everything _you ask for, and it's never enough -"

"I _needed _you," Sarah said to him angrily.

"And here I am," Jareth said calmly.

"I needed you _before,_" Sarah said venomously. Jareth gave her a pointed look.

"It didn't appear that way from my perspective," he said. She sputtered in frustration.

"How was I supposed to know that he was cheating on me?" she growled.

"You weren't," Jareth said. "Until you did. Now you know. And now you want me. So here I am." He shrugged, as if life was that simple. Sarah narrowed her eyes at him.

"Now, Precious," Jareth said soothingly, pushing off the doorframe and strolling over to her, "can you honestly say that you would have chosen me over him before? He _is _human, you know. And I'm… not." Sarah blinked at him.

"Lots of challenges," Jareth continued as he sauntered closer, "romancing a Fae. Definitely not the easy route. I daresay you weren't ready for it three years ago."

"I beat the Labyrinth," Sarah protested.

"And went home," Jareth countered.

"I needed to grow up," Sarah said.

"And are you grown up, now?" Jareth asked her, his pointed teeth gleaming as he leaned over her, framing her on the couch with his arms.

"Too much," Sarah said, as tears filled her eyes.

"I know, Precious," Jareth said gently. "I know," he said, as he wiped a tear away with his gloved thumb. "There's such a sad love deep in your eyes," he murmured.

"Yes," Sarah whispered, remembering his song to her.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you, Precious?" Jareth said, stroking her hair back from her head. "Something that's broken can't meld with something that's whole."

"But I _was_ whole!" Sarah said in frustration, on the verge of crying in earnest. "Before him, I was whole!"

"I wasn't," Jareth said quietly. Sarah froze.

"What does your broken heart want, Precious?" Jareth asked her softly, holding her chin with his fingertips.

"You," Sarah said.


End file.
